


Children of the Revolution

by Goethicite



Series: And Everyone is to Blame [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mandalorian Culture, Not Beta Read, Parenting is Hard and Gross, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Swearing, Time Travel Fix-It, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23817241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goethicite/pseuds/Goethicite
Summary: "The galaxy is shavit anyways.  Whatever happens can't be worse."Cara Dune and Din Djarin are either on a bad trip or the rabbit hole they'd stumbled down trying to protect Djarin Junior is a whole lot weirder than it seemed.
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryz
Series: And Everyone is to Blame [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716034
Comments: 54
Kudos: 742





	1. Beneath the Water

Cara charged around the pile of rubble spalling off a corner of the ancient, sandstone wall that made up most of this nightmare maze of ruins. Behind her, the flat buzz of Djarin popping off a few more rounds over his shoulder informed her they hadn’t lost their pursuers. Leading with the muzzle of the heavy assault rifle she stripped off one of the bounty hunters they’d already killed, Cara prayed she didn’t run them straight into a dead end.

The new path took a sharp left then opened up suddenly into a narrow courtyard full of the skeletons of massive vegetation. Everything green had long turned to dust like the rest of this dirtball planet. There were no other paths leading out. “Fuck!” Cara stepped to the side and swung around to let Djarin run past her while she laid down a wall covering fire and dropped another one of the bastards after Djarin’s kid. “You need to use your jetpack, mando! I’ll keep them off you and the kid!”

Djarin said several things that Cara didn’t need a translation for as he realized there was nowhere else to run. “The hell I’m letting you make a last stand here!” He leaned over her shoulder, close enough, she could hear the kid whining, picking off a bounty hunter stupid enough to stick his head out to see what was going on.

“That pack can’t lift both of us, Djarin. You’re the parent. You need to go.” Cara yanked one of the grenades off Djarin’s belt, smashed the top top against her hip to prime it, and threw it underhand so it rolled down the path to the junction they’d just come from. There was the muted pop of plasma. Cara dropped to her knees bringing her arm up to protect her face. Instead of fleeing, Djarin leaned over top of her so the kid was squashed between them and she had beskar across her eyes. The concussion blast cut off the sudden, frantic yelling from behind them as the decaying, ten meter high walls crumpled down to fill the void left by the plasma grenade vaporizing the lower blocks.

The entire world seemed to shake as the collapse pulled in more and more of the walls in a terrifying domino effect as millions of two tonne slabs losing their precarious balance. Cara glanced over the beskar vambrace pressed protectively above her nose. The walls lining the path to the courtyard were starting to sway, dust spurting from the cracks like steam from an overstressed vent. “Fuck,” Cara repeated dropping her assault rifle. She grabbed Djarin’s legs, locking her fingers under his cuisses, and lifted them both up from the crouch, running backwards as fast as she could without overbalancing. If she stumbled they would all be smashed in the collapse. They all might anyways if Djarin didn’t get his head on straight and use his jetpack.

“Door!” Djarin barked. Cara dropped him, letting him swing her around to see the grating hidden by dead vines which covered an old stairwell. They both shoved their gauntleted hands between the rusted bars and yanked. Djarin over-committed and went backwards when the grate flew up since it hadn’t been held in place by anything but a patina of rust.

Cara charged down the stairwell yanking her blaster out of the holster on her thigh and using the light on the end to illuminate a smooth-sided tunnel that stretched out into black. “Clear!” she called over her shoulder. There was the clatter of metal against stone as Djarin rolled his armored ass down the stairs rather than wait any longer. “You still have the rifle?” Cara demanded.

There was the jingle of metal and Djarin confirmed, “Rifle’s still functional, and I have my blaster.” Cara let out a slow breath. Above them there was a roar that sounded so much like that moment on Scarif as the last gunship pulled away Cara was half-convinced she’d gone flash-blind again when the light went out. Djarin was no better. He dragged all three of them to the floor covering her and the kid with his body. The kid was screaming. Djarin was praying, and Cara wanted to scream right along with the kid. She bit down on her forearm to stay quiet as the roaring settled to an almost musical clatter of pebbles.

They laid in a pile as the kid quieted to plain, old sobs. Cara found his huge, soft ears in the dark and stroked them gently. Occasionally, she’d bump into Djarin’s hand as he rubbed his kid’s back in soothing circles. After too long, Djarin asked in a very small voice, “You alive, Dune?” he sounded like he thought the answer might be no.

“I’m here, Djarin,” Cara said, reaching back with her free hand to pat at the first piece of armor she felt. “But you may actually suffocate me if you don’t get your fancy metal ass off.”

Djarin rolled off her. She heard the scraping noises of him resituating himself followed by the quiet murmuring in his own language as he soothed the kid. Cara groped around on the floor until she found her blaster and turned the light back on. There was a trail of rubble coming from the stairwell. The corner of a stone block protruded ominously from where it was wedged sideways. More rocks were piled around it with no light coming through. They wouldn’t be going back that way.

“How’s the kid?” Cara asked as she finished checking the area.

Djarin hummed softly. “Better now. Still a little shook I think. It’s okay, womp rat. Buir and ba’vodu are here.” He crooned the last words.

“You’re going to have to give him a real name one of these days,” Cara said more for the comfort of the old argument than because she cared.

“Someone gave them a name once, and if I can’t find it then they deserve to choose their own,” Djarin said like he had every other time. He took Cara’s hand when offered it. She pulled him to his feet. “Save the powerpack. I’ve got multi-spectrum.” He tapped his helmet to indicate how he planned to see in the dark.

Cara grimaced but turned off the light, holstering her blaster. She reached out and found the edge of a pauldron which would provide a reliable handle for her new seeing-eye strill. There was a quiet clank followed by a coo as Djarin settled his kid into a more comfortable hold. “Walking,” Djarin warned so Cara wouldn’t be jerked forward.

They walked. At least the floor was smooth as set duracrete so all Cara had to do with put one foot in front of the other mindlessly. The dark grew heavier somehow. Gray flickered at the edges of her vision as her brain tried to process complete darkness. Djarin was the anchor in front of her, pace never wavering, each step sure. Without her eyes, Cara could hear every creak of Djarin’s armor, every soft snore the kid made. There was something wet in the air. The humidity gave a sense of cold, sluggish weight, but the smell was familiar though Cara couldn’t place it.

Sound was strangely muffled as Djarin guided her down what felt like a circular ramp. She wanted to ask what he was seeing but was loath to shatter the silence and draw attention. The attention of what Cara couldn’t say.

The ramp ended and the floor flattened again. Djarin stopped suddenly. Cara bumped into him, feet so used to the new routine they kept going without her input. “My helmet just stopped working.” Djarin sounded more disturbed than a powerpack dying warranted.

“Okay, let me get my light,” Cara said rather than asking. She drew her blaster and flicked on the light. Nothing happened. “Well, fuck. You got another, Djarin?”

There was a rustle then a click. “This shouldn’t be dead. I put a fresh powerpack in it last time I cleaned my rifle.” Djarin’s voice had gone low and grating in the way Cara knew meant the next person who twitched the wrong way was getting shot.

The strange scent increased in intensity until Cara remembered. Starblossoms and muskwood. It was the smell of the forest outside of her childhood home after the summer rain. Both species of plant were extinct, along with the rest of Alderaan. Her breath caught. Djarin didn’t miss it. His hand found her arm pressed against him so they wouldn’t accidentally shoot each other and slid up to her shoulder. “What?”

“Lift up your helmet and tell me what you smell,” she ordered. Just in case the lights decided to randomly start working again, she closed her eyes waiting for the muted click and inhale of Djarin testing the air without it being filtered first.

He let out a nearly silent huff of confusion. There was another click then he said, voice distorted by the vocoder, “Strill shit and tiingilar, spicy stew.”

It was very different from what Cara was experiencing but she had some ideas. “The place you grew up, not before, but after you were Mandalorian. When you think about it, what do you smell?”

“The beroya who took care of me bred strills for tracking.” And stew was a cheap way to fill up a starving teenage boy. No doubt Djarin senior had made it with the same love Cara’s own father had put into the meals he’d prepared for Cara. Hesitantly, Djarin asked, “What do you smell?”

“Alderaan,” she said, refusing to let the name catch in her throat. “When it still existed.” The hand on her shoulder pressed down firmly enough she could feel it through her armor. “So forwards or back?” she asked. They were not going to have a ‘moment’ in a creepy tunnel that was making them hallucinate about their childhoods.

Djarin hummed noncommittally. The kid cooed stirring now that he was no longer being rocked by his father walking. “We could go back, try to dig ourselves out.” Even he didn’t sound convinced. The tunnel seemed to be one continuous, snaking path. But Cara was sure if they found a wall, turned around, and went back they would just end up walking in circles. From how stiffly Djarin was holding himself he was thinking the same thing.

Cara holstered her blaster after making sure the light was switched off. No point in draining the powerpack in case the lights decided to start working again. “Forward it is. I’ll find the wall and lead since you’ll need a hand for the kid.” The tunnel had narrowed significantly, only about a meter across, but was still tall enough Djarin’s fingertips couldn’t reach the back. Cara put her out her arms with a hand just below shoulder height on each wall. Djarin gripped the back of her collar. The worn leather of his glove rubbed against her neck.

They walked.

Gradually, Cara noticed she was sweating through her undershirt. The air was uncomfortably warm with a sound like a waterfall in the distance. There was something underneath, not water, maybe a bird? Djarin was panting softly in the bulk of his armor. “You need water?” Cara asked. She wasn’t even certain if they had any.

“No,” Djarin said harshly. They walked a few steps more then he said so quietly Cara could barely hear him over the waterfall, “Can you hear them?”

“Hear what?” she asked, not really paying attention. The sound under the waterfall wasn’t a bird. She gritted her teeth hard enough to hurt. It might be worth testing the lights again to check they weren’t about to be ambushed by something with a lot of teeth.

“The screaming,” Djarin said very, very calmly.

Suddenly the roaring was behind them, getting closer. In front of them was blaster shots and screaming. The smell of roasting meat was almost overwhelmed by the stench of burnt plastoid. Cara grabbed Djarin’s hand. They seized each other tightly and started to run. Cara kept a step ahead, arm extended to keep them from running head first into a wall. There were ghosts in the dark, grayish-white shadows dressed like Djarin except small, too small, half-grown and desperately playing soldier as they were mowed down by the dark. Behind them, the end of a world rolled inexorably forward. Cara ran, dragging Djarin when she had to so he would keep pace. Her lungs, improved by Mon Cal bioengineering like so many other parts of her, were aching before everything quieted enough they could slow to walk. There was no way they could turn around now.

Djarin didn’t ask stupid questions about what they’d just seen which was why Cara liked him. Instead, his hand remained wrapped tightly around hers as she groped her way along the glassy, smooth wall.

The next whisper made Cara nearly jump out of her skin. It was her name, spoken properly in the gentle rolling vowels of rural Alderaan instead mutilated by Gideon’s fake Core-bred mockery of an accent. “Don’t listen,” Djarin said hoarsely. He squeezed her fingers in solidarity as they ignored their parents calling them home for supper.

Eventually, the voices faded. Cara was almost hopeful the weird, sleenshit crazy part of the trip was over when she took a step and it splashed. She and Djarin both paused as Cara tapped around with the toe of her boot confirming there was water in front of them. The tunnel didn’t widen just sloped down into the water. “Fuck! Echuta! Fierfek! Hutt kriffing, spice-addled, lizard-monkey kark!”

“Back then,” Djarin said just as unhappy about it as Cara was.

Cara grunted turning carefully to reorient them. She froze because there were two more Mandalorians in the tunnel. The two mandos were both dressed in shiny silver beskar, one shorter than the other. Somehow they were both illuminated despite there being no light.

“Mand’alor!” someone called in warning. The taller mando knelt down as the kid, a little bigger and more coordinated than the last time Cara had seen him in the light of her blaster scope, scampered into his arms. Then there was a hiss-snap. The shorter mando was standing over the decapitated body of the taller one firing a blaster at a figure in a dark robe carrying a red, glowing electro-staff. The dark robed figure somehow deflected the blaster bolts with their weapon before cutting down between the beskar plates and taking off the shorter mando’s blaster arm below the elbow. The shorter mando swung a vicious haymaker with their remaining hand that connected just before the red weapon passed beneath the beskar chest piece and gutted her. When the shorter mando hit the ground, helmet rolling off, Cara saw her own face.

Next to her Djarin inhaled sharply, unconsciously tugging Cara closer. The scene faded to black again. This time Cara saw herself sprawled across a bed, a lovely pantoran woman sitting at a vanity nearby. Stormtroopers broke down the door, shot the other woman, and dragged Cara off. She didn’t have to guess it was going to take that Cara a very long and painful time to die. Djarin could see this too. She knew even if she didn’t know how. The Cara who’d split with Djarin to avoid the drama still wouldn’t give up him or the kid. Gideon caught Djarin anyways, gunned him down with an E-Web cannon coming back with a bounty that would fill the kid’s empty belly.

“The Force is unbalanced. There can be no hope in a black hole.” A beautiful togruta in light combat armor walked out the shadows. “The light this little one brings will be consumed as the Force collapses in on itself.”

Cara wasn’t sure what exactly Djarin was thinking, but it was clear that there was no plan that kept the kid safe. Djarin was so tense he might shatter if she tapped his armor. “So what do we do?” Cara demanded.

“Go back to the beginning,” the togruta said kindly. “The scales have been broken and will not weigh properly.”

“So get new ones,” Djarin barked, suddenly coming alive again.

The togruta smiled brightly. “That is a choice you will have to make for yourselves. If you go through the water, you will not return. If you stay, all will end darkness. It is not a guarantee I offer, just a hope. What price are you willing to pay for a chance?”

Cara glanced up at Djarin, now able to see him. He looked down, helmet tilting slightly. He would go regardless, but he wouldn’t ask her to follow. “I’m pretty sure this a bad trip, but fuck it. The galaxy is shit anyways. Whatever happens can’t be worse.” Djarin squeezed her hand again. She grinned up at him before looking back at the pretty togruta. “So, we just walk in the water?”

The togruta nodded. “May the Force be with you.”

Glancing up at Djarin a final time and seeing how the kid cooed happily reaching for the togruta, Cara shrugged. “Fuck it?” she asked the most unlikely friend she’d ever had.

Djarin dipped his helmet pressing his forehead to the kid before agreeing, “Fuck it.”

They walked. The water lapped around Cara’s ankles, then her thighs. Somehow she wasn’t getting wet. The water was at her neck. It rose up over her head. She kept walking.


	2. From the Earth

Din hung tightly to Cara’s hand. Normally he wouldn’t dare. The woman was prickly about contact, and he respected that since he felt the same. However, he wasn’t going to forget Cara trying to blow herself up and force him to flee with the kid anytime soon. They wouldn’t talk about it. Just like they never talked about the way Cara screamed in his face before taking the kid and running on Navarro. Instead, he bruised Cara’s fingers while she didn’t protest. It was better than any words Din could remember saying.

The unsettling, sloshing resistance of the water dissipated so slowly it was almost unnoticeable. Din didn’t realize they were back in normal air until he saw the light. All at once the sound of yelling and blaster fire and clanking metal filtered in from the distance. There was a battle ahead.

Without having to say anything, Cara dropped his hand and lifted the kid out of his arms. She would stay behind him and fire from the cover of his beskar. The kid would be out of the line of fire. Din pulled his blaster. “Forward?” he asked just to make sure Cara didn’t prefer to hunker down and let whoever was out there blast each other to pieces first.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Come on, mando. I’ve had a weird fucking day and shooting someone will make me feel a whole lot better.”

Din smiled behind his visor. For all her snark about the Way, Cara was more Mandalorian than some of the clan born Din had grown up with. They charged into the hot sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

It was combat on a scale Din hadn’t seen since the Imps came to Mandalore. Also, there were droids. Some bastard had obviously found an old Seperatist stockpile and refurbished them. The droids were moving towards of the center of a of large stadium, similar to the parade grounds at Kelab where Din had trained, with a large, open flat surrounded by tiered, concentric bench seats. In the center of the open space, a group of beings in similar looking tan clothing carrying strange swords were crowded together. The swords were longer than the traditional kad Din knew and looked like they were edged with some kind of looped laser, mostly in blue and green. Mostly importantly, they passed through the reinforced durasteel frame of the droids like a vibroblade through bone.

“Three sides!” Cara called in warning, pointing to where a man in black with a red sword was dualling one in beige with a purple blade while the other swordsmen focused on the droids. Din wasn’t about to make enemies so soon and concentrated his fire on the droids since the swordsmen seemed to be ignoring him and Cara.

“Target the droids!” he ordered Cara. She grunted in acknowledgement and focused her shots on the spindly B1 units that made up most of attacking droids.

Din carefully picked his way around the edge of the arena heading for a break in the droid lines. Hopefully the droids would focus on the swordsmen, and they could sneak away and find a ship. There was an explosion as one of the heavy mech stompers fired a rocket at a small mirialan. The girl, and she was just a teenager, all too long limbs and too thin face, hit the ground in front of Din with a scream of fear. Her sword vanished as the hilt spun out of her hand and across the dusty ground.

“I’ll cover her!” Cara called kneeling down and firing over the girl so Din could focus on the heavy trooper droids marching towards them. Din holstered his pistol, which was no good against the droid’s blastproof plate armor, and pulled out his beskar vibroblade.

There were only two heavy droids focused on the girl, and it was the work of moments for Din to disable their weapons then stick his vibroblade through the central processing units. When he turned to check on the girl, Cara had her back on her feet with sword in hand. “There’s a gap right there,” Din snapped at the girl pointing to where the droid ranks were a single unit deep. “Run right through there and get back to your people. Don’t let them cut you out of the herd again.”

“Yes, master,” the girl said between pants, wide-eyed as she stared at him. Cara smacked the girl’s ass like a reluctant blurrg to get her moving. With a high pitched yip, the girl charged forward, cutting through the weak point Din had indicated and rejoining the mass of swordsmen.

Din stepped in front of Cara again so they could continue their slow crawl to the area entrance. When they had just about made it, Din heard the familiar roar of a jetpack. He looked up, half expecting to see one of the Vizlas. A Mandalorian in blue and silver beskar’gam was aloft, firing indiscriminately at the droids and swordsmen. As Din watched, a reflected blaster bolt hit the commando’s jetpack sending them spinning gracelessly to the ground. One of the swordsmen started to close distance with them, somehow blocking the other mando’s blaster bolts with his sword.

Din glanced over his shoulder at Cara knowing she was watching too. “We’ll take cover there,” Cara barked, pointing at some decorative stonework that made a recessed niche a few feet into the arena entrance. “Get your buddy.”

Starting up his own jetpack, Din flew across the arena and diverted the sword blow meant for the other commando’s neck with his vambrace. The energy blade slid down the beskar strangely with enough heat it burned Din through his kute. With a bellow of pain, Din cut his jetpack bringing up his knees so he slammed into the swordsman’s chest feet-first. He and the swordsman tumbled across the arena floor together. When they stopped rolling, Din brought his helmet down hard on the bridge of the swordsman’s nose. Beskar met flesh and bone cracked loudly.

The swordsman punched Din in the cuirass with unnatural force. Din flew backwards slamming into the arena wall hard enough he felt something in his chest and shoulder pop. The other mando had managed to ditch their malfunctioning jetpack. Though Din had stopped the swordsman from taking off the commando’s head, the other’s beskar'gam was durasteel or alloy not pure beskar. The energy blade had gone through the pauldron and edge of the cuirass leaving one of the mando’s arms hanging uselessly at their side.

“K’olar,” Din gasped, coughing as he grabbed the other mando’s undamaged pauldron. “Ner’vod cuy.”

“‘Lek,” the injured commando agreed, raising their remaining blaster to pick off some B1s who were looking too interested in the two armored warriors.

Leaning on each other, one blaster on each side in their working hands, Din and the other Mandalorian staggered towards Cara’s frantic waving. It looked like Cara had found an ally as well. A young boy, just shy of being old enough for his first helmet, was pressed against her side. In one arm, he cuddled Din’s child close. In the other, he held Cara’s backup blaster with the ease of someone who’d been taught to use it about the time they started toddling.

“Dad?” the kid asked, voice high and scratchy when he saw the injured mando.

“It’s okay, Boba,” the mando rasped as he and Din settled behind the protection of the wall.

Cara swore when she saw the melted edges of the metal plates and massive, blackened wound in the other Mandalorians shoulder. “Djarin, kid, covering fire,” she ordered, pulling out the small medkit she carried whenever she went out on a job with Din. “It looks cauterized. So you won’t bled out,” she informed the injured mando unfolding the large square of bacta infused, self-adhering bandage. The mando howled as she shoved the sheet into the wound without removing any armor, pushing the mando’s kute out of the way to seal the edges against his skin.

The kid made a choking noise starting to turn to look. Din shook him by the arm gently. “Covering fire,” he repeated to the boy, shooting down a scout droid as a reminder.

“This will keep you from dying from shock for the next two to three hours depending on your metabolism,” Cara said as she stabbed the mando in the neck with a single use hypospray.

“Thanks,” the mando said hoarsely, not sounding grateful in the least. “Who the fuck are you?”

Cara repacked her medical kit and attached it to her weapon’s harness. “The people who just saved your ungrateful ass. Do you have a ship?”

“Why?” the mando demanded as he prodded Cara’s patch job.

“Because you’ve got a kid and my shiny friend there has a kid, and I’m thinking it would be best if we got them out of this hellhole before someone else decides Mandalorians and their buddies make good target practice.” Cara pulled out her blaster again. “So, ship?”

The other mandalorian turned so their visor faced Din. “Tion jare’la verd ner’vod?”

“‘Lek. Kaysh mandokarla.” Din answered.

“My ship is over in bay jenth-ten. Boba, show the woman.” The other mando wedged his bad shoulder under Din’s uncooperative arm to help him to his feet despite the fact it had to be agonizing. But the alternative was him having no hand free for a blaster. Din did his best to not to lean too hard on the injury.

“Boba is it,” Cara said, leaning down to talk to the kid. “Okay, you hang onto Djarin’s kid and stay with me. We’re going straight to the ship. Djarin and your dad are going to watch our backs.”

Boba gave his parent an agonized look when Cara held out her hand. “Do as she says,” the mando ordered.

Cara clasped Boba’s hand, which meant the kid didn’t have a free hand for a blaster. It was fine since, if there was shooting, Cara would pick up both kids and run for cover. Boba led Cara down a discrete side tunnel into some kind of underground complex. Din and the other commando limped after them as fast as they could. Luckily, there wasn’t much resistance in the tunnels. Just a few winged insectoid beings who seemed to be the locals. Cara picked them off with ease. 

Boba led their group to a landing platform carved into a sheer rockface from the drop at the edge. In the center of the platform sat a Firespray interceptor that was even older than the Razor Crest though in much better condition than Din’s ship. Boba ran up to a panel on the side, tapping a few buttons and lowering the main ramp.

Cara hustled both children up the ramp and safely into the ship before coming back for the two Mandalorians. “Can you pilot with that arm?” she demanded as she took Din’s weight onto her own shoulders.

The mando glanced over, and the tilt of his helmet told Din he was grimacing. “No. But Boba can. Can you co-pilot?”

“I can manage co-pilot,” Din told Cara. “You’ll need to help me up the ladder.”

“I’ll do the pre-flight,” the mando said, already hitting the controls to pull up the ramp. “Get him buckled in so we can get out of here.”

Boba scrambled up the ladder to the cockpit still carrying Din’s child. Cara came behind the children, bodily lifting Din up far enough he could lay his torso on the deck of the cockpit and use his legs to push himself up the rest of the way without moving anything too much.

The kid, Din’s kid, waddled towards the entrance to the cockpit when Boba put him down. Before Din had to dive and keep the little womp rat from falling down the access tube, Cara popped up the ladder and scooped him up. “I got the kid. You focus on getting us out of here, Djarin.” She disappeared back down the ladder, no doubt to help with the pre-flight below.

One of the pilot’s chairs had been modified with a custom attachment that meant Boba fit comfortably in the seat and could reach all the controls without straining. The kid settled into the modified chair, buckling himself in with one hand while the other already worked the controls.

Much more cautiously, Din settled himself in the other pilot’s seat. The design of the ship meant that when it was on the ground the pilot’s were laying back in the seats. An unusual design even for an antique like this Firespray. Boba put on the headset at his station, but Din didn’t worry himself about the headset hanging from his seat. They were running away from a battle. Air traffic control was the least of their concerns.

“Initiating startup sequence,” Boba announced. He flicked a few switches and the engines purred to life so smoothly it was like the noise had always been there.

Din checked the readouts in front of him, finding the fuel gauge and hyperdrive system readouts as well as the nav panel. “Tank if full,” he said following the formal procedure he’d learned as a child but rarely used anymore. “Hyperdrive is cycling. Five minutes to hyperspace capability.”

“Where are we going?” Boba asked, his voice pitching and cracking like it had back at the arena.

“Somewhere not here.” Din rapidly tabbed through the nav panel. “I’ve got deadspace a five minute jump away once we clear this mess. We can decide on our final destination from there.” He programmed in the coordinates for a custom jump to empty space even further in the middle of nowhere than they currently were. “Take us out, Boba.”

Boba pulled carefully out of the docking bay. Then he hit the forward thrusters to full speed with a recklessness Din would have never dared in the Razor Crest. They zipped past half a dozen different kinds of fighters and an actual warship, jinking all over to avoid potshots.

The comms beeped frantically as a dozen channels tried to hail them. Din muted it since they weren’t going to stop and talk. There was another buzz of warning as contacts popped up Din’s sensor array. “We’ve got a quad of fighters coming up behind us,” he warned Boba. “We’re going to have to jump early. Find a clear vector and I’ll hop-skip us.”

Boba went even paler, but he obediently made a sharp turn that pointed them to clear space. Din programmed in a microjump and hit the button for the hyperdrive as soon the nav system beeped confirmation. They fell in and out of hyperspace so quickly even Din’s stomach twisted. Then the nav system confirmed that it had a clear route to the coordinates Din had decided on, and Din initiated the second jump.

Din breathed out as the stars turned to lines in the viewport. They’d made it. A miserable, muffled whimper made him twitch looking for his kid. Instead he saw Boba, white faced with puffed out cheeks. Shit.

“Don’t swallow,” Din ordered looking around frantically for a container. “Breathe through your nose. It’s going to be okay, Bob’ika.” Boba made another distressed noise which meant there wasn’t time to find a container. Din was just grateful the kid wasn’t old enough for a buy’ce as he unbuckled them both and lifted Boba so the stream of thin vomit landed on the floor instead of on a chair or a control panel or the boy himself. Boba whined and heaved again, tears trickling out of his screwed shut eyes. 

“Boba!” the boy’s parent yelled from the bottom of the access tube. “Boba, are you okay?”

Din answered while the boy retched again. “He’s fine. The hop-skip made him jump sick.” Din tipped Boba so the boy’s face was closer to the floor to reduce the splatter radius.

“Yours is the same,” the mando informed Din wearily. “Your friend has them in the fresher. I’ll get something to clean it up.”

“That’d be good,” Din called back. He winced as more semi-solid mess came out of Boba followed by sobbing. “Shouldn’t be long until he’s done.” Once there wasn’t anything solid to expel, jump sickness usually settled.


	3. In the Sky

Jango smoothed his hand over Boba’s freshly soniced hair. He and the strangers had come to the temporary, exhausted truce of parents who had vomit in unfortunate places and miserable children who were determined to cry themselves sick again. Both children and the woman had taken sonic showers. Boba and the little, green infant had been dressed in fresh clothes while the woman had settled for sonicing her outfit and cleaning her armor with the rags Jango and the other commando had used on their besker’gam.

Boba and the little green menace were finally quiet, soothed by the warm blue milk and uj’alayi Jango had pulled out to bribe them into eating something so they wouldn’t get jump sick again. The other commando hadn’t complained about cleaning up Boba’s mess in the cockpit which made Jango tentatively like them. The woman just seemed grateful that her friend was there to take care of the kid. She eyed both children warily like she expected them to start puking again at any moment.

The three adults and two children were settled silently in the combination living area and kitchenette at the heart of the Slave I. Jango had dug out some bottles of water which sat on the table between them, but none of the adults had the energy to reach for one. It was clear that the woman and the commando could sit in silence alternating staring at their kid and Jango until someone passed out.

“Jango Fett,” Jango finally said, reaching up to take off his helmet and setting it down on the table.

The commando flinched while the woman’s eyebrow nearly hit her hairline. “Huh. I thought all of you were about ‘this the way’.” She said the ancient phrase with just a touch of mockery.

“Sure. Five hundred years ago,” Jango said with his own sneer of disbelief. Then he processed what she’d said. Her mando partner hadn’t reached for their own helmet when Jango removed his as was polite. There was only one group he knew of that would be that rude to another Mandalorian without provocation. He pulled his blaster as the Death Watch bastards across from him pulled theirs.

No one fired because Boba was across Jango’s chest and the other commando had his infant pressed tight against his stomach. Even Death Watch hesitated to shoot children. “Okay,” the woman said far too loudly for the small space, “I need both of you to take a deep breath and tell the very much not a mando what kind of gential comparison is going on here.” Her blaster never wavered from Jango, but her other hand went out to rest warningly on her partner’s shoulders.

“Kyr’tsadla hu’tuun,” Jango snapped, all the explanation needed.

The other commando hesitated. “Tion kyr’tsad?”

“And I’m going to need that explanation in Basic,” the woman said sourly. “Once again, not mando.”

“You’re friend there is Death Watch,” Jango bit out. “Traitors, liars, and murdering coward scum.”

The woman slowly lowered her blaster letting it rest on the table. “Okay, I don’t know what Death Watch is. But they sound like pretentious hutt-fuckers. Which means my buddy here can’t be one of them.” She looked between the two Mandalorians. “We’ve got kids here, in this very small space. And I know none of us wants anything to happen to them. So, Jango Fett, I swear that my friend here is just a little… religious. That’s all. Not part of any ‘Death Watchers’.”

She shook her partner’s shoulder until he lowered his own blaster to the table. “I’m not Death Watch,” the commando said quietly. “I don’t even know what that is.”

Jango hesitated. There were a few ultra-orthodox clans who lived in isolation, usually as part of the diaspora far from Manda’yaim. Some had even followed Jaster for a while, quiet soldiers who never took off their armor unless they were alone. “What’s your clan?” Jango demanded.

“Djarin, my name is Din Djarin,” the commando replied hesitantly, helmet moving just enough Jango knew he was watching the woman. “And this Cara Dune.”

The names weren't familiar to Jango. “Do you follow Vizla?”

Djarin made an incredulous noise loud enough his vocoder picked up on it. “No!”

“Okay.” Jango lowered his own blaster. Djarin didn’t recognize his name, and neither did the woman, Dune. From Djarin’s reaction to Vizla’s name, he wasn’t friendly with Pre Vizla and his pack of bootlickers. Djarin was orthodox which made him a bit odd but less dangerous to Jango and Boba than the average Mandalorian. The orthodox types took children and parenting very seriously.

“I’ve had some run ins with the Death Watch. It didn’t end well for me or for them,” Jango offered by way of explanation. “Got no problem with you  ruyot’ade. I’m a traditionalist, not orthodox myself. Resol’nare, not necessarily Te’Yust.”

Djarin shifted uncomfortably. “I have no quarrel with that.”

“While this has been an interesting diversion into sociology I still don’t understand,” Dune interrupted, “why don’t we all put the blasters away and talk like grownups. Be good role models, that kind of thing.” She pointedly holstered her blaster and set her hands on the table. Her partner and Jango followed suit. “So, I think I’m reading the room right when I say you’d love to have us off your ship.”

Jango inclined his head in silent agreement waiting for the offer. Dune looked expectantly at Djarin. He sighed heavily then spoke. “We just need a drop off somewhere with decent, ‘discrete’ traffic. And you need a medcenter. Without bacta, that shoulder isn’t going to keep working. Shorter the trip the better.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Jango agreed. “Ord Mantell?”

Dune and Djarin exchanged looks. They must have been partnered for a while since looking at a blank visor seemed to tell Dune everything she needed to know. “Yeah. That works. I’ll go ahead and program the nav system. You can jump yourself.” So everyone would know exactly where they were going.

Orthodox or not, Jango was starting like these strangers. They hadn’t asked him what he was doing on Geonosis or about the battle they’d walked into. Nor had they mentioned what they were doing there. Djarin was still a bit awkward with the parenting thing, but he’d taken care of Boba well enough. Dune was the kind of woman who was only interested in trouble when she was bored or there was profit in it. Exactly Jango’s kind of being. Djarin’s kid was still an infant and messy with it, but well-behaved compared to the screaming wreck that was Boba between the age of eighteen months and three years. Add to that Djarin saving Jango’s ass, which made him feel warmer about any being, and he could think of worse passengers.

Boba fell asleep not long after the adults settled back into weary silence. Dune carried him to bed under Jango’s supervision. Djarin tucked his own kid into the hammock seat in the corner of Boba’s room Jango had installed so Boba would have somewhere to read that wasn’t his bunk. No one spoke for fear the kids might wake up instead of sleeping off the last of their malaise. Jango left the room last, backing out carefully before dimming the lights and shutting the door slowly enough it wouldn’t clang.

“Cockpit?” Dune murmured carefully keeping her voice down. Jango nodded leading the way through the access tube.

Djarin found the med kit and set himself to packing more bacta gel into Jango’s wounded shoulder while Dune pulled up the nav computer. She swung the screen around so Jango could see her setting selecting the jump points. “When was the last time you updated your charts?” she asked idly while waiting for the computer to calculate the first set of jumps. “You still have Alderaan in here.”

“I updated the charts a week ago,” Jango replied, only half paying attention. “What happened to Alderaan?” Alderaan was a cornerstone of the Republic and one of the original Core Worlds. Even on Kamino and Geonosis he was surprised he hadn’t heard something.

Djarin’s hands stopped moving. Jango looked up to see something ugly twisting up Dune’s pretty face. “Cara,” Djarin said quietly. He drew out her name like he wanted to say more but didn’t know how to.

Jango glanced between the two of them. “What happened to Alderaan?” he asked more urgently.

“It’s a debris field,” Dune snapped, baring her teeth. “It has been for years. Since the Death Star blew it spacedust along with everyone on it.”

“Sleenshit,” Jango bit back. “I may not go to the Core often, but Alderaan is sure as haran not spacedust.”

“Cara,” Djarin repeated a little louder. “Cara, the water. When we walked into the water.”

“A shared hallucination. We have no idea how long we were down there.” Dune’s finger traced over the aurebesh characters of Alderaan’s name. “He’s crazy.”

Jango had to snort at that. “Lady, you’re the crazy one. Alderaan, blown to spacedust, the Republic would be busy losing its collective mind even more than it already has.”

Djarin didn’t speak as his partner glared at him. “Easy answer,” he said after an uncomfortably long time. “We go to Alderaan.” He spoke directly to his partner, ignoring Jango completely.

“Fuck no. I’ve been. I went with the princess after… There’s nothing there, Din. Just bad memories.” Still her finger hovered over the ‘Add Point’ function. “It’s just a graveyard,” Dune said more to convince herself.

“Well, I don’t know.” Jango ignored Djarin’s attempt to shut him up by digging a thumb into his shoulder. “But we can’t go to Alderaan. I’m pretty sure this ship is still clean, but the Alderaanian Navy is not who I want to test Judicial’s response time against. We agreed to Ord Mantell.”

“We’re going to look, not pass through customs,” Djarin argued. “Then onto Ord Mantell. It won’t take that much longer with the hyperlanes, and we’ll pay for the extra fuel.”

Jango leaned over to look at the map on the nav screen. Depending on which hyperlanes they used, they could do a transfer in Alderaaian space without having to double back to get to Ord Mantell. “You’re paying for the fuel,” Jango warned because his arm was a useless lump of meat, and Djarin and Dune were sane enough hadn’t they picked a real fight.

Dune added Alderaan to the list and the rest of the calculations started processing. She swung the screen over to Jango for approval when it finished. Jango biometrically locked the route just in case one of them had another delusional moment. He should have known better than to think that was the end of it.

The transfers went smoothly under Djarin’s or Jango’s supervision. Jango even got some sleep locked in Boba’s quarters with his son while Dune slept on the couch in the living area and Djarin sat in the cockpit with his child to eat in privacy. It spoke to just how dedicated Djarin was to orthodox traditions his partner, and good friend, had never seen his face. Jango didn’t even know any Death Watch extremists who were that dedicated.

There was no reason to drop out of the hyperlane at Alderaan. The transfer point wasn’t until Brentaal. Still all of them, including Djarin’s child and Boba, piled together in the cockpit at the appointed time. The air was heavier than Jango liked. Dune looked like she desperately needed a drink. Djarin, his sleepy child tucked up against his shoulder, hovered behind her like a nervous mother tooka.

The stars went from streaks to pinpricks as Jango brought the Slave I back to real space. Below them, Alderaan shone blue and turquoise with pearlescent swirls of white clouds meandering their way across the bright orb against a background of black void. There was a noise like a gutshot. Jango reached out for Boba sure he was back on Galidraan listening to his the death rattle of his vod’e.

“Cara?” Boba asked nervously tugging away from Jango. Dune was curved over Boba’s chair. It was the only thing keeping her up. She was moaning like she’d taken a shell to the back. Boba anxiously reached up, no doubt to check if the woman was injured.

Djarin stopped him with a hand on his arm before Jango had to. “She’ll be okay, Boba,” he said seriously. “It’s been a… very long time since she’s been home.”

Jango rubbed at his chest with his good hand watching the planet below them. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t Manda’yaim or even Concord Dawn. Despite Jango’s presumed death, there was still a kill sight order for him in Mandalorian Space. Even Kyrze and her weak stomach wouldn’t hesitate to enforce it. Not if she wanted to keep her toy duchy from washing away in a torrent of blood. Boba had never seen their home world, either of them.

“Can we land?” Dune finally croaked out. She wasn’t looking at Jango but at Djarin. “It could… A trick. A hologram. Some new cloaking technology.” She shook her head, a jarring smile pulling at her lips. “It can’t be there. It’s got to be a trick. We should go, before the Imps come.”

“Cara, I don’t think there are any Imps here,” Djarin said softly. The child in his arms was fussing, whining, tiny arms flailing at the woman in a demand for her to hold them. He was watching Jango well. Jango knew the angle of a buy’ce well enough to know when he was being side-eyed.

Jango considered the two strangers who weren’t really strangers. Not anymore than any Haat Mando’ade had been a stranger back in the day. When Jango had selected the Cuy’val Dar he purposely left names off the list, commandos who would have torn themselves apart trying to be loyal to their Mand’alor and following their interpretation of the Resol’nare. Ironically, it meant Jango hated all but a few of the very youngest of his handpicked trainers. Even then it was because he didn’t know Fenn Rau and the other young guns well enough to dislike them. The time he’d spent with Djarin discussing Boba’s training and armor maintenance was the first, real, social conversation he had with another ramikad in years.

Reaching out, Jango disengaged the lock on the nav system. He flipped through the available ports choosing one in a moderately high population density area with low ship traffic. Then he turned on the transponder beacon for one the Slave I’s clean identification codes. “This is the Blue Shriek-hawk requesting landing permissions for Juranno Port.”

A few minutes later air traffic control got back to him. “This is Juranno Port control. What is the nature of your visit?”

“Resupply. We’ve got an Alderaanian crew member,” Jango added since Juranno was not the kind of place most spacers would look to restock.

There was another long silence and a different bored voice said, “Blue Shriek-hawk, you have permission to land on pad Aurek-Three. There is no docking fee for light vessels for the first twenty planetary hours. Transmitting coordinates and flightpath now. Do you have any goods to declare?”

Jango programmed the flightpath into the nav system. “Flightpath received, control. No goods to declare. Blue Shriek-hawk requests permission to begin landing procedure.”

“Permission granted, Blue Shriek-hawk. Enjoy your visit,” control said without a change in tone.

As Jango prepared the Slave I to land, he glared at Djarin. “Keep her quiet and out of sight of port security when we land.”

“I will,” Djarin promised. “Bob’ika, can you watch the womp rat? I need to help Cara.” Boba nodded and accepted his new favorite thing to cuddle happily. Djarin took Dune by the arms and pushed her towards the access tube to secure them both in the passenger seating on the deck below.

Jango lingered over the post-flight check after they landed. He wanted Djarin to have time to get Dune under control before Boba or Djarin’s own kid saw her. Boba was shifting impatiently, bouncing the green infant to soothe them, by the time Jango unhooked himself from the crash harness. “I’ve never seen Alderaan before, Dad,” Boba complained. “Come on!”

“Patience, Boba,” Jango replied, considering whether it would draw more or less attention if he wore his full beskar'gam. Since Djarin was orthodox he certainly wouldn’t be taking his off to blend in. Jango decided it was worth the stares to hide his face, and Djarin’s presence actually made it less likely he would be identified since a pair of orthodox Mandalorians weren’t Jango Fett the bounty hunter.

Boba whooped when he saw the doors of the cargo bay were open and ran down the ramp towards the sunlight outside. “Stay where I can see you,” Jango called after him confident Boba wouldn’t wander too far, especially while watching the younger child.

Dune was crouched at the edge of the landing pad, running her hands through a patch of blue and white flowers growing from cracks in the duracrete. Djarin was standing a meter away looking like a sentry with his rifle slung over his shoulder. He tensed as Jango approached moving so he was between Jango and Dune.

Jango stopped far enough back Djarin wouldn’t feel the need to start shooting. “How is she?”

“Fuck off, Fett,” Dune rasped still playing with the flowers. “Go away before I shoot your ungrateful ass.”

“My ungrateful ass? Who needed a ride off Geonosis?” Jango frowned at the complete lack of reaction from both of them, but especially Dune, to the jab.

Djarin noticed too. He bent down closer murmuring her name. Dune stirred in response to her partner’s unspoken question. She looked up at him, dry eyed and looking like she’d just walked away from her own Galidraan. “Din, we have to kill Palpatine.”

Jango choked on a mouthful of spit, nearly spraying the inside of his visor when Djarin replied, with no hesitation, “We can do that.” to a request to assassinate the Chancellor of the Republic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Din Djarin was rescued by the Death Watch. However, by the time he was old enough to care about politics the Kyr'tsad were the functional government. He wouldn't have any reason to care what political group they were originally from.


	4. Through the Fire

Obi-wan Kenobi should have been in the infirmary. However, as the newest member of the council, and the only jedi on board the transport who was fluent in mando’a, he was propped up by a clone trooper while trying to decipher a message sent using codes two centuries old and in archaic mando’a. The trooper, a hard-eyed man who looked to be a few years younger than Obi-wan himself, had given his name as Alpha-Seventeen.

Alpha-Seventeen was quite possibly Obi-wan’s favorite person in the galaxy. When Master Windu had come storming into the infirmary to retrieve Obi-wan, swearing up a storm about an encrypted message in Mandalorian script with both eyes still swollen shut, Alpha-Seventeen had slung Obi-wan’s arm over his shoulder without a word and half-carried him to the command deck. The clone trooper also radiated calm into the Force strongly enough Obi-wan could feel the ache of his body instead of everything being drowned out by the din of panic that hung like a miasma in the air. 

“It means truce,” Obi-wan finally said when he’d squinted enough the characters were no longer doubled. “It’s a quote from a poem about the Mandalorian Wars. A Sith acolyte betrayed the Mandalorian mercenaries he’d hired and stole a child of the clan. The Mandalorians contacted the Jedi under truce and asked for help in retrieving the kidnapped child. It’s one of the few instances in Mandalorian literature where Jedi are protagonists.” Obi-wan blinked. “There’s a line missing I believe… Oh, sithhells, it’s a key. There’s a secondary message encrypted in the transfer data. Verbal decryption.” He shook his head. “This message is only intended for another mando. Maybe one of the troopers?”

“None of us read that,” Alpha-Seventeen said bluntly. “We only learned to read basic aurebesh. Which line is missing, sir?”

Obi-wan forced his eyes back open enough to check. “The response of the jet’alor, the leader of the Jedi. She agrees to help the Mandalorians as long as the child involved isn’t taken to the Sith for training after they’re returned to the clan.”

Alpha-Seventeen considered the screen in front of them. “Wouldn’t it follow, sir, that a jetii should say it? Not a Mandalorian.”

“Very, very few jetiise speak mando’a well enough for a verbal decryption,” Obi-wan informed him with painkiller-induced cheerfulness. “Even less read Mandalorian literature extensively enough to recognize this poem.”

“It’s for you, Kenobi,” Windu snapped. The usual menace wasn’t as effective since his broken nose made a nasally whistle when he spoke. “You’re the only one in the Order on this ship capable of deciphering this message. It’s for you. So decrypt the damn thing.”

Obi-wan frowned. “Why would the message be for me?” Windu’s glare jarred him back into focus long enough to rattle off the missing line in mando’a only accented by a Sundari lilt.

The projection of the character only message beeped then twisted into a pre-recorded holo. A twenty centimeter, blue projection of Jango Fett started speaking, “Kenobi, did a little digging, I know you’re Satine Kyrze’s jetii. That means you're my best option. The situation’s changed. We need to speak under truce. I am… was Haat Mando’ad. I swear on my honor as ori’ramikad I’m not out to double-cross you. I’ve got a ruyot’ad and aliit with me who needs to speak to you and whichever of your high and mightys are still sucking air. The pretty senator too if she survived. We do the meet on my ship, but I’ll park in one of your hangers. We do this now or not at all. If you agree, send the flight path to the commcode attached to this message. And for fuck’s sake, use a burner comm. Fett out.”

Everyone on the command deck was staring at where the projection had been. Fett’s body hadn’t been found and his ship had been missing, but the assumption was he’d gone to ground. For him to demand a truce to speak with the Jedi he’d just tried to kill seemed a trap. Except, he was Haat Mando’ad, maybe not the actual Jango Fett but not quite the imposter current rumor assumed either. To claim allegiance to Jaster Mereel was still a dangerous thing. Mereel’s surviving followers, which included many among the Old Clans, would kill liars and the Death Watch would kill someone for claiming it regardless. And someone just throwing around the name Jango Fett to capitalize on the reputation of the dead Mand’alor would be unlikely to know the poem used for the encryption.

“Obi-wan, Master Kenobi!” Obi-wan finally registered Master Tiin calling his name.

“Apologies,” Obi-wan said, shaking his head then grimacing because it reignited the throbbing behind his eyes. “I was just gathering my thoughts.”

Master Koon was suddenly much closer than he’d been before. “Obi-wan,” he rumbled, “we need you to translate.” He leaned down to make it easier for Obi-wan to meet his eyes. “The people Fett says wish to speak to us, who are they?”

“Ruyot’ade.” Obi-wan shrugged, aborting the movement when Alpha-Seventeen glared at him. “Ultra-conservative Mandalorians, but not necessarily Death Watch or expansionists. Most Ruyot’ade are isolationists. No one outside their immediate clan ever sees their uncovered face, and they’re violent about enforcing it.” He glanced up at Alpha-Seventeen. “Ruyot’ade wouldn’t be involved with the Kaminoans. I’m unclear on the specifics, but their veneration of children is even more pronounced, and with a broader age range, than the average Mandalorian. If one of these ruyot’ad was the mando in the silver armor you saw, Master Windu, I genuinely don’t know why they would be involved.”

“Silver commando and their partner?” Alpha-Seventeen asked though he knew exactly who Obi-wan and Windu were talking about. “I’ve never seen them before, and I know all the trainers on Kamino. They’re not one of them.”

Master Koth crossed his arms over his chest. “This is too convenient. Fett tried to kill Master Kenobi mere days ago. And fired upon us at Geonosis.”

“If he is Haat Mando’ad, then he had his reasons,” Obi-wan said sharply. “A Mandalorian never forgets and they rarely forgive. What matters is he wants to talk now. We should acknowledge his offer of truce. If we refuse, it is unlikely we will ever be able to confront Fett without bloodshed again.”

Master Windu was frowning at Obi-wan though Obi-wan wasn’t sure why. Alpha-Seventeen steadied the knight’s swaying by holding onto his hip more tightly. “Obi-wan,” Windu said, which was strange, “what is Heet Mando-wha?”

Obi-wan and Alpha-Seventeen both grimaced at the butchered title. “The True Mandalorians, Master Windu.” The words came out harshly. Obi-wan didn’t have the energy to hide his disgust. How had they gotten here, where the head of the Order couldn’t remember the chosen name of the group the Jedi had committed near genocide of, boggled him. “The True Mandalorians were the political moderates massacred by our Order’s carelessness at Galidraan. Where the last hope for a Mandalore that was both wholly sovereign and politically stable died with a young commando named Jango Fett. And the Jedi were the weapon which made the killing stroke.”

“Angry you are still,” Master Yoda noted. He walked onto the deck to the tapping sound of his gimmer stick. “Long ago it was from Mandalore you returned.”

“I met survivors, Master Yoda. Not the super-commandos or the political leaders, but the beings suing for peace as best they could. Those who weren’t at Galidraan never managed to reform without an appropriate candidate to nominate as the next Mand’alor. Most ended up throwing their lot in with the New Mandalorians because the other choice was the Death Watch. I was a padawan who knew nothing. I had to look into the eyes of those who thought themselves dar’manda for surviving and try to explain why the Republic decided to involve itself in a conflict it didn’t understand, only to sabotage all their hopes for peace. It is not an experience I am likely to forget.” Obi-wan shook his head. “If this ‘Fett’ is Haat Mando’ad then I grieve for him and would protect him. As all of our Order should wish to do.”

Kit Fisto nodded approvingly. “Well said, Master Kenobi. Fett’s actions have been unacceptable, but he still deserves our compassion and understanding. If he wishes to cease hostilities then we should hear him out.”

“We are already looking at a war,” Shaak Ti added. “I, for one, would like to try a diplomatic solution before we have no choices left.”

Yoda was watching Obi-wan thoughtfully. “Well enough are you, young Obi-wan, to attend a meeting with Fett? Difficult it will be, more if you are indisposed.”

Obi-wan felt Alpha-Seventeen’s flash of something ugly that was quickly tucked away before any of the others noticed. Apparently Fett had never told his clones about Galidraan. “This message was for Satine Kryze’s jetii. Whether Fett’s made the connection I’m not sure, but when he sees me he’ll understand if I’m a bit out of it,” Obi-wan said smoothly, nudging calm at the edges of Alpha-Seventeen’s mind.

“I’ll stay with Kenobi,” Alpha-Seventeen growled. “Fett trained me. I know his tells. If he tries something, I can get Kenobi clear.”

“You feel no loyalty to Fett?” Master Koon asked, carefully keeping the question neutral.

Alpha-Seventeen actually thought about it. “We’re not his son,” he settled on. “He trained me, but I’m meant for the Republic and the Jedi.” No one was crude enough to poke at the strange wording of his first statement, an obvious sore spot.

Based on Alpha-Seventeen's description of Fett’s ship, a small team of masters was selected to be present for the meeting. Obi-wan, with Alpha-Seventeen to aid him, would approach first with Yoda and Adi Gallia. Plo Koon and Mace Windu would follow them, escorting Senator Amidala. The remaining Councillors had volunteered to monitor the situation from the hanger with the assistance of Luminara Unduli and Kit Fisto. Even with a smaller group, it would still be a tight fit. Which could be good or bad depending on Fett’s intentions.

At the designated time, a Firespray patrol vessel jumped into real space near the transport with pinpoint precision. The pilot didn’t bother using the comm, transmitting the landing codes Obi-wan had provided through one the burner comms he kept among his and Anakin’s things. Windu had scowled ferociously when Obi-wan had dug it out.

The ship set down neatly on the designated landing pad and cut its engine. There was a moment of stillness before the doors scrapped open and a ramp extended. Jango Fett, missing his helmet and left pauldron with serious damage to his cuirass, came out with his hands on his head and no weapons visible. From the ease with which he held his left arm up, he’d spent some time in bacta since they’d last seen him. “Kenobi,” Fett said loudly. He paused when he saw Obi-wan leaning against Alpha-Seventeen. “I’d say sorry except…”

“Except if you knew I was the Kryze jetii you would have tried harder to kill me,” Obi-wan finished dryly. Fett inclined his head in silent acknowledgement of the truth. “Four of the surviving council members, Senator Amidala, and one slightly battered knight as requested. Are you still willing to talk?”

“Not talking to me.” Fett examined the faces before him. “Not that one.” He pointed at Windu careful to keep the motion slow and non-threatening. “I take attempted decapitation in front of my child pretty personally. Everyone else can come aboard.”

Reluctantly, Windu joined Eeth Koth. Obi-wan was startled when the first thing Fett did once they were all aboard with the cargo doors shut was open a bottle of water, take a swig, and offer it to Obi-wan. Apparently, he was serious about the truce. Obi-wan took a swig and passed it onto Alpha-Seventeen to do the same. “Master Koon won’t be able to eat due to his species' atmospheric requirements,” Obi-wan warned Fett as the bottle was passed around for everyone to drink from.

Fett hesitated, but Koon calmly poured some of the water into the compartment he used to take in fluids without removing his mask and much more loudly than usual sucked in a mouthful. “The water’s enough to declare his intentions,” Fett decided before taking a bite out of a hypoallergenic, compressed protein ration bar and handing that to Obi-wan.

“Fett’s removed his helmet, given us food and water, and we’ve accepted,” Obi-wan said pointedly to the others at the conclusion of the ritual. “We are guests in his home and thus may carry our weapons in peace to acknowledge our right to self-defense.” It meant Fett was treating with them as equals not as prisoners or even as the enemy.

“My friend can’t remove his helmet,” Fett warned the Jedi contingent. “It’s against his religion, but he’s tomad, an ally, and my guest. He will defend himself and his clan but no more.”

Obi-wan nodded gravely in acceptance. “Of course. He is ruyot’ad. We would not disparage his honor by asking. That is the Way.”

Some of the tension left Fett’s shoulders. The man was a black star in the Force, just barely noticeable and with no trails of emotion flickering on the surface to be sensed. However, Obi-wan had spent a year in beskar’gam and knew how to read the silent language of body motion. Fett was grateful for Obi-wan insuring his people’s good manners. “That is the Way,” Fett echoed, the polite response from a traditionalist to a more conservative Mandalorian.

Fett led their group through the cargo bay. There was a line of four durasteel and transparisteel cells, complete with simple fresher setups and attachments for manacles taking up a third of the space. However, Fett seemed to want a more neutral meeting place and took them through the hatch into the ship’s living area.

Sitting at the small dining table in the corner was the dark-haired boy from Fett’s apartment on Kamino. Next to him, with an arm protectively around his shoulders, was a heavily built woman in non-Mandalorian armor. Her dusky skin, dark hair, and plain but elegant features made Obi-wan think she was originally from the Inner Rim. Across from the woman was a Mandalorian commando in unpainted armor. He was taller than Fett and holding a child who glowed almost as strongly as Anakin in the Force, but that wasn’t what made Obi-wan sag hard into Alpha-Seventeen’s supporting hands.

The part of Obi-wan that would always be in love with the beautiful, terrifying mando warrior he’d fought beside wanted to fall to his knees like a penitent at a shrine. Beskar. The ruyot’ad wore all pure beskar, not a single piece or partial set or alloy. Like the commandos of old he wore his soul for the galaxy to see. It sang mournfully in the Force but still strong, still proud.

“What’s wrong with him?” the dark-haired woman demanded.

The ruyot’ad stood up, handing a small, humanoid child to the woman. “He can hear the beskar,” a hoarse voice murmured through a low-distortion vocoder. “Like the armorers can.”

Obi-wan nodded dumbly. The last set of true beskar’gam he’d seen had been Satine’s clan armor. “It’s unusual,” he said trying to form words. “And never seen outside the Mandalore Sector since the Duchess’s reforms.”

“Tion gar resol’ad?” the ruyot’ad asked Obi-wan, sounding pleased. “Tion kar'taylir Te’Yuat?”

“No. Nyac. Ni cuyir jetii. Ni… mandla naasade, shi kar'taylir miit be’ash’e.” Obi-wan’s heart ached as the commando slumped in disappointment.

Fett quickly added, “He was geroy’ad to the Duchess of Mandalore when he was in training. That’s how he knows us. Call him Kenobi.” Not master or Jedi which may as well have been insults in themselves to a Mandalorian.

Obi-wan quickly started translating for his peers. “As the…” Geroy’ad had a lot of translations. Fett had inflected it to mean the lover one learned with as a teenager, but Obi-wan didn’t feel like having that conversation in front of half the council, “childhood friend of Duchess Kryze, I have not stolen my knowledge of mando’a or Mandalorian culture. It was gifted to me by another mando.” And thank the Force Fett seemed to be a half-decent diplomat when he cared. Obi-wan had completely forgotten that a ruyot’ad might see it as his duty to wash away the insult of theft with blood.

The ruyot’ad sat back down but seemed more comfortable. “Very well. Who are your tribesmen?” He seemed especially interested in Yoda. Strangely enough, the woman seemed equally fascinated bouncing the bundle of brown blankets expectantly.

“May I present Master Yoda, our most respected elder, and Plo Koon, Adi Gallia, and Shaak Ti who are members of our high council. Senator Amidala represents the Chommel Sector as first chair senator. She also had the honor of serving two terms as Naboo’s elected monarch during which she personally led the force that retook her planet from foreign invaders. My companion is Alpha-Seventeen.”

The Jedi weren’t well received but the ruyot’ad nodded approvingly to the Senator. Then he continued staring at Yoda. The old master stared right back waiting. “What species are you?” the ruyot’ad asked after everyone else was already thoroughly uncomfortable.

“This question, why you ask it I wonder,” Yoda retorted.

The woman snorted looking over at the ruyot’ad. The commando gave the smallest dip of his helmet in approval. She pulled down the blanket so everyone could better see the child. It was youngling, green and bright and familiar. “My child is a foundling,” the ruyot’ad said gravely. “They were an imperial prisoner for some time before I took them. We know nothing their of kin, clan, or tribe.”

“Imperial?” Gallia asked in confusion. “From what empire?”

The woman gave her an unpleasant, if impersonal, smile. “Sit down,” she ordered. “This is a hell of a story. We had to hold a blaster to Fett’s head to get him to believe us.”

They arranged themselves around the room. Fett sat next to his son so all the Mandalorians and their allies were arrayed across from the Jedi. Amidala, Obi-wan, and Yoda sat directly across from them while the others found other places to sit or lean comfortably.

“May we know your name and the name of your tribesmen?” Amidala asked with grativas equal to the ruyot’ad’s once they were settled.

The ruyot’ad looked, surprisingly, at Fett. Fett did something with the angles of his shoulders and head that was too quick and complicated for Obi-wan to translate. “I have no name,” the ruyot’ad said. “My name is Mando. This the Way.”

Obi-wan sent a mental shove to his peers warning them not to react to the strange declaration. Amidala was a good enough politician that her confusion was only noticeable in the Force. Obi-wan gave a slow, exaggerated nod. If he’d been wearing a full helmet, the gesture still would have been obvious. “That is the Way,” he agreed. “We are honored to meet you, Mando.”

The woman slapped Mando’s shoulder. “I do have a name. Cara Dune. The kid,” she bounced the kid to draw attention to them, “doesn’t have a name either. We’ve been calling them ‘kid’ or ‘womp rat’.”

Fett’s boy perked up hopefully. Ruffling his hair, Fett cleared his throat. “My son, Boba.”

“Meet you all we are pleased to,” Yoda said, bowing from the waist where he sat on the table to be eye-level with everyone. With just a hint of mischief he added, “The young ones most of all.” Boba narrowed his eyes and glared.

Dune and Mando were exchanging loaded gestures. It wasn’t the classic silent communication Obi-wan had learned but the private pidgin of partnered warriors. “Jan’vod says you are sorcerers like the ones from the old stories,” Mando began. “So you understand magic.”

“We call it the Force, but many beings perceive or describe it as magic,” Obi-wan said encouragingly.

“Good,” Dune said flatly. “Because a week ago, I only knew of one living Jedi in the whole galaxy, and I’m Alliance. Mando here didn’t even know what a Jedi was. I always thought they were just fairytales like unicorns and the Angels of Iego, something else the Empire made extinct.”

Mando took over in the shocked silence. “Jan’vod thinks your people were purged like ours were. There are no resol’ade left. Only hu’tunne and those who follow the Way. The Empire came when I was young and took our beskar. They killed any who resisted. A few verd’ike and their teachers were put on ships to escape the massacre. I was a foundling but my instructors thought me worth saving.”

The Force rang like a bell screaming in agonized truth. Obi-wan was hanging onto the table while Alpha-Seventeen helped Gallia slid down to the floor without collapsing.

“Alderaan is gone,” Dune said. She had to pause between the words to swallow. “The emperor built a planet killer, the Death Star. They tested it on Alderaan as a warning to any of the other worlds who thought they could support the Rebellion in secret. Almost two billion people in an instant. Another five million executed by Imperial decree for ‘rebel connections’. My family, my entire family, is gone. There’s maybe less than a million of us left. Rebels, spacers, and diplomats. The queen, the royal family and all heirs except for the princess, gone.” Breathing deeply, Dune turned to Mando so she didn’t have to look at the Jedi as she blinked rapidly. “There will never be another queen, and we will bury her highness in white.”

The Jedi sat in horrified silence. White was the color worn by the heir-apparent to the Alderaanian throne. Once crowned, the monarch never wore it again instead sticking to dark jewel tones and blacks. To bury the last heir in white was to declare the end of a government and culture that reached back to the time before the Old Republic. An open wound throbbed, cracked straight down the middle of the Force radiating from Dune where part of her soul had been torn out.

“With your permission, Cara Dune,” Yoda said softly, “for ourselves we would see.”

Fett spiked fear and rage into the Force leaning forward aggressively. Before he could protest, Mando said, “Me first.” He tilted his head down pressing his helmet to Dune’s forehead in comfort, giving her time to collect herself.

“I will do this,” Plo Koon rumbled, “if you would let me.” He gestured at his breather unit. “I have no connection to Mandalore, but I too understand the necessity of a mask.” Obi-wan brushed a grateful thought across the kel dor master’s shields. He already had his own nightmares of fields full of armored bodies and didn’t particularly want more.

Mando considered Plo Koon. “I cannot remove my helmet,” he warned.

“Nor I mine in this environment,” Koon agreed. “However, the beskar you wear muffles the Force. Would it be possible to use a helmet which was made of a different metal? That would make it easier for both of us.”

Fett’s entire body was screaming ‘what the fuck are you doing, vod?’. Still he turned and lifted his own durasteel buy’ce off a nearby shelf when Mando looked to him. “Use the fresher to change.”

Mando accepted the helmet, stepping around everyone to enter the small fresher and shut the door. He returned with his own helmet under his arm. The difference between Fett’s durasteel and true beskar’gam was obvious with the durasteel helmet above pauldrons made of real Mandalorian steel. He stood nervously facing the kel dor. Obi-wan jumped in to provide some structure to sooth the anxiety rippling off the commando like drops of sweat. “Plo Koon is ori’buj’ad. If you take a seat in front of him, he can explain the process.”

The reassurance that Plo Koon was a teacher did seem to help. Mando and Koon sat on one the benches recessed into the wall facing each other. Koon, who was experienced with untrained minds, had seen what he needed to within seconds with Mando left only slightly shaky. Koon took one of the commando’s hands delicately into his own. “You have had a hard life, young warrior.”

“No harder than the others,” Mando said, voice wobbling just a little.

“Perhaps.” Koon reached up and put his free hand onto top of Mando’s helmet. Fett, Dune, and Obi-wan all started to stand up with different intent. However, Mando leaned into the touch like he might with an instructor who he was fond of. “He speaks the truth. He lived through the genocide of his people on Mandalore.”

“My turn then?” Dune asked passing off the youngling to Boba. She took Mando’s place in front of Koon. Mando remained nearby, close enough for her to reach out if she needed him.

Koon spent nearly four minutes in silence with her. When the pop of pressure from the connection breaking echoed through the Force, he bowed his head low. “Oh child.”

Dune’s mouth twisted into sneer. “No one’s child. Fuck you.” Koon said nothing moving back to give Mando more room to check on his friend.

Facing the other Jedi, Koon reached out sharing the horrors he’d seen, chin on his chest. The Force wept softly whispering ‘truth, truth, oh please no, truth’. Gallia’s eyes filled up then spilled over as she stared straight ahead. Obi-wan grabbed for the table, scratching at the metal with his nails as Yoda’s ears flattened completely against his head. Obi-wan was shocked when Fett reached out to grip his forearm in a warrior’s clasp. But it was comfort. Obi-wan squeezed hard enough he felt the edges of Fett’s vambrace cutting in the joints of his fingers.

The silence sounded like a roar until Fett spoke. “Tell them the emperor’s name.”

Both Mando and Dune looked up. “Palpatine,” Dune spat. “Emperor Palpatine and his pet enforcer Darth Vader.”

“Yeah, that’d be it.” Fett watched the Jedi with malicious glee as they tried to process what they’d just heard. He squeezed Obi-wan’s arm in a mockery of reassurance. “Now it's my turn to tell a story about a man named Tyrannus and enough creds I could buy what's left of my people their own planet.”


	5. Chapter 5

Alpha-Seventeen considered whether it was worth drawing attention to himself for a chance to sit down. The Jedi had all retreated to the cargo bay to argue among themselves in relative privacy. Fett had refused to let them off the Slave I to have their discussion, pointing out how poor their operational security already was. At least on the Slave I there were no listening devices Fett hadn’t planted himself. Alpha-Seventeen wasn’t clear on what operation they needed to worry about security for, or even what was going on, but he was content to wait until he could carry Kenobi back to the infirmary and ask there.

The shiny commando and his girlfriend were sitting together with their kid in his lap. They were playing a game with the kid which seemed to involve trying to get it to grab their fingers. Everything about the way they crowded close to each other and hunched over the kid screamed that they wanted to be left alone.

Boba had disappeared. If he was up to his usual tricks then he was probably in one of the maintenance crawl spaces spying on the Jedi’s meeting. Fett, however, was sitting at the table cleaning sets of binders he’d pulled out from the storage space under the seat. It was obvious he was trying to be friendly since usually it would be one of his blasters.

Alpha-Seventeen was weighing the risks of sitting across from him when Fett ordered, “Sit down and help me, boy.”

“Yes, sir.” Alpha-Seventeen sat down across from Fett and picked up a rag, dipped it in solvent, and started scrubbing.

“You’re one of my Alphas,” Fett observed. “Four… No, Seventeen. Keep working, boy.”

In shock, Alpha-Seventeen had stopped moving to stare at Fett. He hadn’t been aware the man could tell them apart without the numbers on their pauldrons. Obediently, he lowered his eyes and went back to cleaning.

“Do you like your jetiise? You can be honest with me,” Fett said conversationally, handing Alpha-Seventeen another set of binders to wipe down.

Alpha-Seventeen risked a glance up. Fett wasn’t like some of the trainers who played games where the right answer was the wrong one. If he didn’t like what he heard, he didn’t punish the trainee for it. “They’re morons and shit soldiers,” Alpha-Seventeen replied honestly. “Brave as mythosaurs though, and good fighters. A lot of my brothers died today who didn’t have to because of them.”

“But you still like some of them at least.” Fett pushed the bottle of protectant over to Alpha-Seventeen so the clone could wipe it across the cleaned surfaces. “You weren’t ordered to stay with Kenobi, were you?”

Alpha-Seventeen said nothing. He didn’t like Jango’s small, cold smile. It reminded him of the ‘underperformers’ Fett had given to Walon Vau. “It’s okay, Alpha. That’s your tag right?” Alpha-Seventeen nodded, surprised again Fett remembered. “How many standards are with you? Is it mostly Alphas?”

“One regiment. All commanders are Alphas,” Alpha-Seventeen answered promptly. It was an odd question since Fett had made it clear he had no interest in the clones after the Jedi came to collect them.

“And your fire-spitter, the little standard who got into a knife fight with the Skirata boy, is he here?”

Why in haran would Fett ask about Kote? Alpha-Seventeen had all but grovelled for Fett to keep the brat from being decommissioned, but Fett hadn’t even known the kid’s ident number. “No. I kept my training squads back since they still have some growing to do. No point in throwing them in the meat grinder until they have the stamina for it.”

“The fire-spitter and the little mutie who he bunks with, what’s their idents and their tags?” Fett asked like it meant nothing. Like Alpha-Seventeen wasn’t considering coming across the table and breaking Fett’s neck for thinking about _his_ verd’ike.

Fett wasn’t stupid. He set aside the binders he was holding and stared Alpha-Seventeen down. “Udesii, ruus’alor. I’m going back to Kamino. And, since I can’t take you boys from the jetiise, I need more ramikade. The fire-spitter and the mutie have potential or you wouldn’t have fought for them. They’ll be mine, Alpha. I won’t give them to one of the others.”

Alpha-Seventeen couldn’t win. Fett was older, but he always won in a no holds barred spar. If Alpha-Seventeen did die trying to protect his vod’ike, Fett would just find them through their disciplinary records. “Cee-Cee Two-two-two-four was the one who fucked up Jaing for going at some bluebacks too hard. Skirata named him ‘Kote’. Kot’ika picked up a Cee-Tee from a bad batch, seven-five-six-seven, and got him into officer training. They call him ‘Ret’ because of his hair.”

“I need something from you to give to them so they’ll trust me,” Fett said standing up. He walked over to one of the compartments in the wall and withdrew a bottle and three glasses. Setting all the glasses on the table he filled them each with a few centimeters of amber liquid. The first he took over to Dune who accepted it gratefully. Then Fett sat down taking one glass for himself and pushing the other across the table to Alpha-Seventeen. “I need your help, ad’ika. Do this for me and I swear all your verd’ike will be there in the morning.”

Alpha-Seventeen took the glass cautiously, huffing in the scent. He’d smelled it before in Fett’s office late at night after a bad debrief. One of the standards who’s trainer was Corellian had told him it was whiskey. Fett had never offered any to a clone before. The story would have gotten around if he had.

Bracing himself, Alpha-Seventeen took a sip. His eyes went wide at the burn, trying not to cough. The second sip went down smoother. “Tell Kote to watch his fucking scope. Little besom kits himself out as a sniper then rushes in throwing punches the moment one of his vod’ike are in trouble. Pretend Ret isn’t there. They’ll know what it means.”

Fett nodded intently. “I will. There’s a few other things I’ll need from you, Alpha. Make sure one of our boys in comms because you’ll be transmitting it directly to the Slave One.”

Alpha-Seventeen tossed back the rest of the whiskey like he’d seen Fett do. “Yes, sir. Happy to help.” Maybe if he did everything Fett asked all his verd’ike would still be there when he made it back to Kamino.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember where I saw it, but someone came up with the idea that Cody's and Rex's real names were 'Kote' and 'Ret' or 'Glory' (presumably for some stupid act of youthful valor) and 'Maybe' (since Rex's mutation put him a risk of being decommissioned). So that's not mine, but I love it.


End file.
